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Half of Israeli drivers use Waze [Globes, Tel Aviv, Israel]

(Globes (Tel Aviv) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 16--Half of Israeli drivers use the Waze GPS navigation app as a means of getting around, according to a survey by iPanel for MIS (Marketing Information Systems) Ltd.. The figure rises to 72 percent of all drivers who use a navigation app.

Last month, Waze announced that it has 28 million registered users worldwide, including four million Israelis. Average use time of the app is 440 minutes a month. The Waze app suits most smartphones on the market.

iPanel found only 12 percent of Israelis use the iGo app of NavNGo, but the app is only available for iPhones, suggesting that the number of users would be much greater if the company would release an Android version of its app. This assumption is reinforced in view of the fact that out of the 93 percent of Waze users who know which operating system they have, 58 percent have Android operating systems and 36 percent have the iPhone's iOS system.

Waze users are also more satisfied than iGo users: 77 percent of Waze users rated it 8 or higher, compared with 62 percent of iGo users.

The navigation app of -- Telmap, which is embedded in all smartphones sold by Israel's carriers Orange franchisee Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR), Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL), and Pelephone Communications Ltd. -- is used by 4 percent of Israeli drivers. On the other hand, 7 percent of respondents did not know which app they used. Telmap, a unit of Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC), is not known to individuals under its own label, but is installed in smartphones by the carriers under their own labels: Cellcom Navigator, Pelephone's GPS Plus, and Orange GPS. This suggests that the proportion of Telmap users could be as high as 11 percent, because many users do not know that they are using it.

In addition to being a navigation app, Waze provides drivers with information about congestion, police, traffic accidents, and safety hazards on the road. The information is provided by crowd-sourcing from social networks. For this reason, it is not surprising that Waze is especially prevalent among drivers aged 18-29 (63 percent). In contrast, 35 percent of drivers over 50 use it.

Waze is built around the number of its users, who actively or passively update the app on road conditions. The use of crowd-sourcing has proven its worth: 41 percent of Waze users actively provide information about road conditions at their own initiative. Men are more active in this endeavor than women, by 45 percent to 35 percent.

"It is possible that women, who tend to be more careful drivers than men, prefer to reduce their reporting while driving, as reporting is seen as especially dangerous and unsafe," says MIS CEO Avi Ben-Zikri
The survey comprised 500 Israeli men and women over the age of 18.